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/lit/ - Literature

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1729567 No.1729567 [Reply] [Original]

>mfw I wanted to become a writer all along but I'm already too old to start and learn how to become one

>> No.1729573

>>1729567
Then write about your sad sad boring life, about your hesitation and how it deterred you from become a writer, about your dream in extremis that would last a second, but that would seem like a second life.
Thank me later should your book become a one-hit-wonder.

>> No.1729576

>>1729573
Yeah, right, because I haven't seen enough of those cluttering the "FREE" bin at the local second-hand bookstore.

>> No.1729580

>>1729576

So what? Do you really make a distinction between those books and the great ones? In a thousand years it will be as if none them had even existed. Eventually everything goes the same way.

>> No.1729585

>>1729576
Now, now, don't be discouraged. It may wind up at some trash cans, it may wind up bringing you fame and fortune; that you can never tell. Many great authors have their works published posthumously, don't you know?

>> No.1729586

How tragic. Maybe you should find a job where giving up and wallowing in self pity is important.
If it's in your heart, and you have five seconds left in this world, you'll attend to it.

>> No.1729652

>>1729585
I am not OP. I won't write shit.

>> No.1729659
File: 112 KB, 790x578, 1294389493430.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1729659

>>1729567
HA! HE'S OLD!

>mfw I'm old

>> No.1729661
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1729661

How old are we talking, here?

>> No.1729667
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1729667

>>1729661
...I dunno, how old ARE we talkin' here?

>> No.1729675

I wonder how old the oldest writer was when they started. Has anyone we know of ever just lived a boring life then BAM a masterpiece after 50?

>> No.1729682

>>1729675
All good writers die in their 40s. This is well established and an accepted fact.

>> No.1729689

You can be Bukowski with Internet addiction in place of alcoholism

>> No.1729693

>>1729682
Damn....7 years left.....Wait, do you mean they die artistically or physically? (implying there's a difference)

>> No.1729695
File: 48 KB, 500x492, wtf_man.jpg [View same] [iqdb] [saucenao] [google]
1729695

>>1729667

I asked you first

>>1729682

Probably because a man who dies young is easier to romanticise. Look at DFW.

>> No.1729697

>>1729693
Brain-death. Interpret that as you will.

>> No.1729702

>>1729682
Nope. Most good writers write their most important works when they're old.

>> No.1729708

>mfw my grandad published his first book at 81 and is now publishing his third at 87

>> No.1729711

>>1729682
You're full of shit. Most writers peak in their 40s and 50s. Sure there are geniuses like Kafka who completed all their great work earlier, but we're not geniuses. Look at the poets and the novelists winning pulitzers, national book awards, etc.

Even then, genuis novelists aren't elusively young when they produce good work. Look at Victor Hugo.

>> No.1729717

it's never too late to be awesome - would you rather be jonathan safran foer or cynthia ozick? I mean, /lit/ is a cesspool, so you probably would rather be foer, but still

>> No.1729723

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

>> No.1729730

>>1729723
Not OP, but damn is that thing a killer. I've failed three times already.

>> No.1729737
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1729737

>>1729711

also Kafka died, so I think it's wrong to say that when his books where his epoch when that was really the only time he COULD have wrote them.

Maybe he would have wrote something better if hadn't been gassed by the nazis.

>> No.1729748

I don't understand why people say only older people get published, or get good books published. I don't see why a person in that 20s or 30s can't get something good written and published. You can get a fair bit of life experience by 25 or whatever. If in doubt, just write characters your age or younger - problem solved.

>> No.1729749

I'm so tired of hearing people say this bullshit. Why do you want to "become" a writer? If you're not writing then you're not a writer, if you are writing then you're a writer.

Shut the fuck up and write. Don't worry about "being a writer", it's not a fucking personal identity it's a goddamn thing you do.

Do it or shut the fuck up.

>> No.1729765

>>1729748
Because unless you're some kind of freak genius talent, at 25 years old you simply haven't been alive long enough to master the craft of writing. You may have a "fair bit of life experience", but your frame of reference for what life is, where it's going, where you've been is so fucking limited that most people reading your work will know you're faking it.

>> No.1729801

>learning to become a writer.

You can't learn that shit OP.

>> No.1729809

>>1729567
>>1729567
>>1729567
>>1729567
>>1729567
>>1729567
>>1729567
>>1729567
>>1729567
>>1729567

OK, Cervantes, look up his biography Yuppie/OP. He was quite aged once he began writing to get published, so I suggest you follow his example. He just wrote the first modern novel, no biggie, and contributed to the Hibernian tongue the greatest piece of literature it ever had the grace of descrying: Don Quixote.

>> No.1729814

>>1729809
PS I love that painter, and he started at age 28 and was self-taught.
Also, Bolaño's alterego (Bolaño himself of the Spanish tongue) Archimboldi started after fighting in WWII without any formal training whatsoever and attained fame. What that says about both becoming a writer and fame is deep, and I suggest you read the fifth part of 2666 to gain an appreciation for the themes presented therein.

>> No.1729816
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1729816

A suitable caption for that painting would be:

"why oh why did I go full denim"

>> No.1729844

Bright young talents like Zadie Smith who write bestsellers during undergrad end up writing corrective works intended to update people on the worldview they have now that they're not 21-year-old assclowns - somewhat duller young talents like Bret Easton Ellis spend the rest of their lives refining and reselling the same worldview they had when they were a 21-year-old assclown